Looking For Johnny - A movie by Danny Garcia

Very little news lately (but this is big), but in snooping around today I found that the film will be shown in Boston (Arlington actually) on May 11th.
I can't wait. I'm assuming that for those of us that contributed the DVD's etc will come out sometime later.
Anyway....Here is the link:
 
http://www.regenttheatre.com/details/boston_film_premiere_event_looking_for_johnny

Posted on FB about 2 hours ago -
OK now that it's official we can announce the first screenings of Looking For Johnny and the NYC premiere which is programmed for May 5th at New York's Anthology Film Archives on 2nd Ave.
Those of you who got your tickets via the indiegogo donations, you are already on the guestlist and for those interested in attending the NYC premiere there'll be an online box office set up very soon.
We've also been selected for the CIMM Fest and Canadian Music Week and shortly we'll announce more screenings in other US cities and in June we'll be in Europe.

Dvd's, t-shirts and the rest of the perks will be dispatched via Jungle Records as soon as everything is manufactured.

More info coming soon. Thanks everybody!

Announcement on FB and Jungle's website :

http://www.jungle-records.net/index.php/12-newreleases/100-looking-for-johnny-the-legend-of-johnny-thunders

Aw man, it's gonna be on Blu Ray?!  I wish that would have been a contribution option!

I am probably gonna get tix for the Washington DC showing.

In Stockholm 7+8 juni!
Great news.

Danny Garcia showed his Clash movie at that theatre.

MJG196 wrote:

Aw man, it's gonna be on Blu Ray?!  I wish that would have been a contribution option!

A DVD can do the job for mainly archive footages which were not filmed in HD back in the days...a Blu-Ray for the interviews part ? We can do without it...ain't you think ?

And my luck continues.  The movie "first" opens in my current hometown of Chicago.  I will be taking a group of 50 cub scouts on a campout that weekend.    The following night Booker T is in town at least I should be able to catch that show.

Guess I will have to wait for my DVD to arrive from Indiegogo-related project.

anyone going to the LA date?

All great news.....this is going to be a good year!

New trailer!

Looks Good!!! I saw that someone posted that it is playing at anthology film archives in nyc, but its not listed on their calender.

"the best songwriter ever"... oh well

Director DANNY GARCIA talks to Finn about his new film "Looking For Johnny: The Legend of Johnny Thunders"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwnpOxQnWn4

Feedbacks from people who went to premieres in Chicago and NYC are more than positive.

Razorback wrote:

Feedbacks from people who went to premieres in Chicago and NYC are more than positive.

Cool.
I would love to read some reviews or opinions, in case someone has seen it already.
Please feel free to post any comment

Just short comments on Facebook until now, but I suppose that some music mags' journalists were there and that we will have longer reviews soon.

Is anyone here going to the Washington DC showing?

I saw it in Boston last night, sat a row behind Mr Billy Rath as a matter of fact.

For most of us on the board, you won't learn anything mind-blowing. There's so much that could be said of the man that I am sure editing down to 90 minutes and keeping the story moving was impossibly difficult. I know that the point of the movie was *not* for people to sit around and swap really fucked up JT stories, but I wouldn't have minded had Luigi talked about the 1981 tour or Wayne with Gange War. Walter came off really well, and so did Richard Lloyd + Peter Jordan.

Danny Garcia did a good job. I really enjoyed it.

John's wife was very pretty, eh?

His wife Julie or the Swedish girlfriend Susanne?

Just got back from the screening here in Washington DC and am very happy with how it turned out.  It is everything that Lech Kowalski's 'Born To Lose' wasn't.  It was not only a great introduction for JT newbies, but it was also humanizing.  Of course it talked about the drugs, but that wasn't the main theme, as in Born To Lose.  Good interviews, too.  Peter Jordan was great!  You could tell this was his chance to get it all out there.

The only thing that sucked were the two drunks sitting in the audience. Loud, obnoxious, and oblivious to the rest of us trying to watch (and they STUNK of cigarettes and alcohol). Thankfully they went out for a looooong smoke break. Constant whispering and laughing when there was nothing to even laugh at! While I was walking out, I saw the limping old bitch had cheap alcohol in her purse.

And here they are:

I forgot to mention that I asked Danny Garcia about the DVDs. He said Jungle is handling that, and they will be taking care of the distribution. So, just be patient!

MJG196 wrote:

I forgot to mention that I asked Danny Garcia about the DVDs.  He said Jungle is handling that, and they will be taking care of the distribution.  So, just be patient!

Nothing until the "premiere" screenings tour is finished......they won't launch the DVD on the market to find it on youtube and torrents a few days later.

www.classicrockrevisited.com review:

Johnny Thunders is one of these romantic rock and roll figures who died before he got old. While hardcore looms large in the myth and memory of JT, director Danny Garcia hoped to make a documentary that remembered him more as a person than as a junk-crazed rock star. Garcia has succeeded with flying colors although he is careful not to paint a candy-coated picture of someone who has always lived life on the edge and crossed a lot of people in the process.

Madrid native Garcia spent over a year raising $32K in funds via indiegogo.com assembling interviews with the people who knew Johnny best--as well as rock journalists who followed his career closely. The most prominent commentator is Nina Antonia, author of In Cold Blood (the ultimate JT bio) and she has many interesting points to make about both Johnny’s talents and pitfalls.  Patti Smith axeman and rock historian Lenny Kaye critiques the mystique of JT while former Dolls bandmate Sylvain Sylvain comments on JT being “the world’s best songwriter” as well as what really caused the demise of the New York Dolls, as Syl is the one who drove Thunders and Nolan to the airport in Florida on the day they broke up in 1975.  The late Marty Thau, who managed the Dolls in the early days, talks about how they wound up getting signed to Mercury Records (who really didn’t know how to market them) and Malcolm McLaren, who handled them at the end is featured via a phone interview.  The late Leee Black Childers, who managed The Heartbreakers in the late 70s and went on tour with them when they opened for the Sex Pistols, has the most gossip to air and talks about how the band tried to put 1000 pounds of cocaine on their recording bill for Track Records when making the now legendary 1975 L.A.M.F. album. Photographer Marcia Resnick and former roommate and school days friend Gail Higgins give personal insight into Johnny’s charisma and flair for fashion.

There is plenty of great Dolls and solo career footage here, and there is even a bit of coverage of Johnny’s foray as an actor via the indie films Mona Et Moi and What About Me. It’s inevitable that heroin gets discussed, as it was the root of both The Heartbreakers and Johnny himself to get major label interest. Great insight to the personally uneven but musically brilliant world of The Heartbreakers is given by sticksman Jerry Nolan’s longtime girlfriend Phyllis Stein who is first to point out that the band’s druggy image made things harder for them to make it in the US than it should have been. Johnny’s close friends like actor/musician Luigi Sciorra and photographer Bob Gruen give incredible insights to the everyday JT, particularly at the end of his life circa 1991—how he was trying to clean up via methadone treatment and hoping to start a new band made up of New Orleans musicians.  (He died under mysterious circumstances at the St. Peter’s Guest House in the French Quarter on April 23, 1991, and today friends and family still do not know whether he was “dosed,” died of the leukemia that he was secretive about or had an overdose.)

Old footage of Johnny himself being interviewed is featured throughout Looking For Johnny and it’s fascinating to see the straight Johnny versus the stoned Johnny, including times he let loose on the audience and waited to see the reaction. (He definitely liked to “stir the pot” and didn’t care if people walked out after politically incorrect stage commentary, LOL!)

No matter how you feel about JT and his music, he is indeed a legend. He is missed in a lot of rock and social circles, and you can easily see how his often-distorted guitar style, messy hair and colorful clothing influenced rockers for years to come. Everyone from Motley Crue to Poison to Green Day seemed to lift his look and guitar stance (at the very least).

I’m really glad that Danny Garcia decided to go “looking for Johnny”—because he was able to “find” him through some of his very fascinating colleagues and friends! If you are an original punk scene aficionado like I am, I also suggest that you check out Garcia’s excellent rock doc The Rise And Fall Of The Clash.

By Anne M. Raso


http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/show_review.php?id=1293